Father Junipero Serra’s sainthood protested at Mission San Juan Bautista

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Participants pause for a prayer as the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band gathers at Mission San Juan Bautista in San Juan Bautista, Calif., Saturday, July 11, 2015. The tribe and dozens of supporters hosted a ceremony to protest Pope Francis' decision to canonize Father Junipero Serra at a formal ceremony in September. Organizers are hoping that this event, among others, will reverse the pope's mind on the matter. (Patrick Tehan/Bay Area News Group)

Choqosh Monroy Auh'ho'oh addresses the crowd as the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band gathers at Mission San Juan Bautista in San Juan Bautista, Calif., Saturday, July 11, 2015. The tribe and dozens of supporters hosted a ceremony to protest Pope Francis' decision to canonize Father Junipero Serra at a formal ceremony in September. Organizers are hoping that this event, among others, will reverse the pope's mind on the matter. (Patrick Tehan/Bay Area News Group)

SAN JUAN BAUTISTA — The pope won’t answer their letters, but will he hear their prayers?

That is the steadfast hope of many California Indians opposed to the upcoming canonization of Father Junipero Serra by Pope Francis. And it was the impetus behind an Amah Mutsun Tribal Band ceremony on Saturday seeking to reverse his decision on their ancestors’ behalf.

But that will likely take a miracle.

The pope so far has not responded to the tribe’s written appeals. And his visit to Washington, D.C. — where he plans to make Serra a saint — is still on track for Sept. 23.

But on Saturday, as they lit bundles of sage and created a wide circle of herbs to ward off evil spirits, tribal members and their supporters say they won’t stop their campaign.

It was the third peaceful prayer and protest this year at a California mission.

San Juan Bautista is the 15th of 21 in a system started under Serra that, his critics say, enslaved and brutalized Indians who were forcibly converted to Catholicism.

“The true history of what happened here has never been told,” tribal Chairman Valentin Lopez told a crowd of about 120 gathered on the grassy field across from the mission.

Serra’s Franciscan order “came up with an alibi that missions were a great place” where Native Americans were “taken care of like they were children” because they “wanted a better life,” Lopez said.

But that is a fiction, he said, “and you will hear words today that will tell the true story.”

That story, he said, includes the fact that more than 100,000 Native Americans died as a result of the trauma inflicted on them by the missionaries, a legacy of wounds that he said continues today.

To Pajaro resident Kathy Blue, who stopped by to listen to the speakers and watch the Miwuk dancers, making a saint out of someone “who was a perpetrator” is akin to rewarding someone for their misdeeds.

“Serra is getting looked up to, and nothing is being said about the people who were stepped on,” said Blue, who is one-quarter Indian.

It’s an outrage shared by Lopez, who has written a series of unanswered letters to the pope decrying Serra’s scheduled sainthood.

The “Apostle of California” doesn’t deserve a place among saints, said Gray Wolf, a leader in the American Indian Movement who helped to plan Saturday’s event.

Wolf, a Native American who lives in Simi Valley, compared the efforts to stop the canonization to the effort by African-Americans to purge the Confederate flag — something that is finally happening in the aftermath of last month’s slayings of nine African-American parishioners in South Carolina by an alleged racist.

“It’s an education,” the 70-year-old musician said. “People will hear about this and think about it, and they’ll understand our history. Whether it’s killing someone physically or spiritually, it’s a wrong that needs to be righted.”

There are other efforts underway. A gay California legislator is trying to remove Serra’s statue from the U.S. Capitol and replace it with one of astronaut Sally Ride, a lesbian. But the effort was just put on hold out of respect for the pope’s visit.

The Roman Catholic Church has addressed the issue of the abuse of indigenous peoples, starting in 2000 when Pope John Paul II apologized for errors the church committed during the previous 2,000 years.

And this past week, before a crowd in Bolivia, Pope Francis asked forgiveness “not only for the offenses of the church herself, but also for the crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America.”

Locally, the Diocese of Monterey has apologized for the church’s abuses of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band dating back to 1797 and the Spanish colonization of Central California.

During a Mass of Reconciliation at Mission San Juan Bautista in December 2012, Bishop Richard Garcia asked for forgiveness for the sins committed against Native Americans in California.

Lopez, who was present, accepted the apology on behalf of the tribe, then exchanged gifts and an emotional hug with the bishop.

But those gestures, he said, are empty, considering the announcement in January that Serra would be canonized.

“We thought we were starting down a path of heartfelt understanding and working together,” Lopez said Saturday. “You can’t just go to confession and say you’re sorry you’ve sinned. You have to make amends.”

This month, California Gov. Jerry Brown, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, among dozens of other U.S. and foreign dignitaries, will travel to the Vatican to meet the pope, who wants to discuss his concerns about human trafficking and global warming.

In the midst of the outrage over Serra’s proposed sainthood, Brown, a former Jesuit seminarian, in January told this newspaper: “Father Serra was a very courageous man and one of the innovators and pioneers of California. But there was horrible devastation of the native peoples.”

But that wasn’t good enough for Lopez and other members of his tribe. They say they will be writing Brown shortly to advise him that they plan to lobby state officials to remove Serra’s name from all public places.

“Parks, schools, roadways — those are just constant reminders to native peoples that we were defeated and enslaved and nearly exterminated,” Lopez said.

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